Image by Jupi Lu from Pixabay

Vi stood in front of the mirror. The solid black bodysuit fit her like a glove. “Mi, are you ready?”

Her twin sister stepped out from behind the closet door. “No, but you’re making me do this so I don’t have a choice.”

The two were identical in every aspect except one. Vi’s eyes were grey and Mi’s eyes were brown. “Put on your sunglasses. Otherwise they’ll be able to tell us apart,” Vi instructed.

“I don’t see why you insist on doing this every time there’s a new surveillance system installed,” Mi told her.

“It’s my job, Mi. I have to test it. This is what I get paid for. It just so happens that since we’re identical, other than our eye color and I’m an inch taller than you, it works out to confuse the hell out of most surveillance systems. This one’s AI driven, supposedly, so I want to see if it can differentiate between us or if identical twins baffle it like we do everyone else,” Vi explained.

“I’d better get a cut of the paycheck this time,” Mi grumbled.

“You will, Mi. I already promised you I’d pay you for this one since it’s a bit more complicated than standing in one place for half an hour like the last one,” Vi promised.

The sisters headed out onto the street. “Okay, so what do you want me to do?” Mi asked.

“We’re going to the central hub. We’re supposed to walk around for an hour. Then meet me at our usual coffee shop. We’ll touch base with Luka there. He’s monitoring everything through the uplink in our sunglasses,” Vi told her.

“Got it.”

They made their way to the central hub of the city. Everyone gathered there before making there way to one of the main public transit sites or one of the many local coffee shops or restaurants. Vi and Mi separated and drifted in and out of the crowd, into shops, and around the public transit sites for an hour. At the end of the time, they made their way to their favorite coffee shop and met up with Vi’s handler.

“How’d it go?” Vi asked, slipping the sunglasses off. Mi sat down beside her and pulled her sunglasses off as well.

Luka looked pale. “I don’t like this new surveillance system at all, Vi. It twigged you from the start and didn’t once follow Mi. It acknowledged her presence and kept an eye on her as it did everyone else, but it was focused on you the entire time. It knew which one of you was the target.”

“That’s impossible. Nothing can tell the two of us apart when we do our matching identities thing,” Vi protested. Luka twisted the holographic display around so she could see the readouts properly. Mi looked as well. Sure enough, the AI had correctly idenfied Vi as the primary target from data it had been fed by their client and it had followed her the entire time. It had noticed the one detail no other system had – that she was an inch taller than Mi.

“That is scary,” Mi commented.

“Extremely,” Luka agreed.

Vi’s phone pinged. She checked it. “Fee’s been wired into my account, plus a bonus for utilizing a body double. They hadn’t expected me to do that.” She shook her head. “I don’t like this. It gives the government too much power.”

“It’s an adaptive AI, Vi. It’s not only going to pick up faster than a standard computer program, it’ll learn. I don’t like this at all,” Luka told her. “I think I’m going to have a word with a few people about this.”

“Come on, Mi. Let’s go home. I suddenly want a hot bath and a glass of something alcoholic,” Vi told her sister.

“Same,” Mi agreed. The twins headed out the door as Luka packed up his gear.